IC7-MAX3: Support RAID with PATA (IDE)??

[Jim (2)]

Need a clarification before purchasing, does the IC7-MAX3 support RAID over the PATA (IDE) connectors too? If so, how is this possible w/o the traditional Highpoint chipsets of previous Abit boards? I'm guessing that perhaps PATA and SATA are driven over the same ICH5R chipset?

TIA

Jim

 

[TomG]

to my knowledge, raid is not supported on PATA.

 

[Jim (2)]

Thx.

I should add, the reason I even considered this possibility was due to a recent article in Maximum PC (Sept. 2003, Dream Machine, pg. 24) in which the author describes supporting two (2) RAID0 configurations, one using two (2) WD Raptors, and the other using two (2) WD Caviar SE 250GB drives (IDE). I was surprised to see this since I also assumed that RAID was only supported over SATA. But I double checked, and sure enough, this is clearly what the author is implying. To quote the article (pg. 30):

"The solution, of course, was to throw two RAID0 arrays on our ABIT motherboard -- the aforementioned Raptor drives complemented by the two 250GB Western Digital Caviar SE drives... The high-end Raptor drives run on the SATA RAID controller integrated into the Intel 875P chipset, while the Caviars hook into the Silicon Image RAID controller soldered onto our motherboard's PCB".

Again, noone was more suprised than me, but the article, if accurate, implies that the IDE controllers are somehow routed through the SATA controller, and thus pick up RAID support. Seems hard to believe the author could have made such an egregious error in describing his RAID configuration. But I haven't seen ANYONE ELSE, either online reviews, anyone in this forum, or a review of the manual indicate such support existed.

Jim

"TomG" wrote:

to my knowledge, raid is not supported on PATA.

--

Thomas Geery
Network+ certified

ftp://geerynet.d2g.com
ftp://68.98.180.8 Abit Mirror <----- Cable modem IP
This IP is dynamic so it *could* change!...
over 118,000 FTP users served!
^^^^^^^
... that perhaps PATA and SATA are driven over the same ICH5R chipset?

TIA

Jim

 

[Mark Taylor]

Hello Jim

The IC7 Max 3 does not support PATA RAID at all. I would assume they were using a PATA-SATA adaptors to run the PATA drives from the Silicone Image controller. BTW this controller supports RAID 0, 1 & 0+1 which means it can attach 4 drives. The Intel ICH5 supports 2 SATA drives and only RAID 0 or 1. BTW I have two Highpoint PATA-SATA dongles for sale as I went and bought two Seagate 120 GB SATA drives for RAID 0 and have a 200 GB PATA drive which I backup to every night with Drive Image V7 in case they crash. Having used RAID for some time I am very nervous with RAID 0 as one hiccup and you loose the lost. I much prefer RAID 0+1 with 4 drives as it gives both performance with the RAID 0 striping and redundancy with the RAID 1 mirroring. I use this on my FTP server with a Promise Fasttrak TX2 and 4 x WD 80GB 7200 8MB drives which gives me 160 GB of storage and redundancy. Performance wise I find the SATA RAID only slightly faster and I was a little disappointed that the speed increase was not quantum compared to the above. I currently use a Gigabyte 8KNXP Rev 2.0 board but had a lot of problems previously and I am still looking very hard at this Abit board and from what I have read and heard it certainly appears to be a very good board. However be careful with memory as I purchased Corsair XMS 3200C2 1GB (2x512MB) as it was supposedly the premium type at the time and I have had many problems with 875 boards working effectively with this RAM.

Regards
Mark

"Jim" wrote:

Thx.

I should add, the reason I even considered this possibility was due to a recent article in Maximum PC (Sept. 2003, Dream Machine, pg. 24) in which the author describes supporting two (2) RAID0 configurations, one using

two

(2) WD Raptors, and the other using two (2) WD Caviar SE 250GB drives

(IDE).

I was surprised to see this since I also assumed that RAID was only supported over SATA. But I double checked, and sure enough, this is clearly what the author is implying. To quote the article (pg. 30):

"The solution, of course, was to throw two RAID0 arrays on our ABIT motherboard -- the aforementioned Raptor drives complemented by the two 250GB Western Digital Caviar SE drives... The high-end Raptor drives run on the SATA RAID controller integrated into the Intel 875P chipset, while the Caviars hook into the Silicon Image RAID controller soldered onto our motherboard's PCB".

Again, noone was more suprised than me, but the article, if accurate, implies that the IDE controllers are somehow routed through the SATA controller, and thus pick up RAID support. Seems hard to believe the author could have made such an egregious error in describing his RAID configuration. But I haven't seen ANYONE ELSE, either online reviews, anyone in this forum, or a review of the manual indicate such support existed.

Jim

"TomG" wrote:

to my knowledge, raid is not supported on PATA.

...

 

[Bill Davis Jr]

When the Author of the article mentions "Silicon Image RAID controller" I am pretty sure he is talking about SATA.

Just like the IC7-G with SATA ports 1 and 2 are IDE 3 and the Silicon Image controller SATA ports 3 and 4 are IDE 4.

I know the Max3 has two additional SATA ports so I am not sure what they are considered.

Bill

On Wed, 5 Nov 2003 14:19:13 -0800, "Jim" wrote:

Thx.

I should add, the reason I even considered this possibility was due to a recent article in Maximum PC (Sept. 2003, Dream Machine, pg. 24) in which the author describes supporting two (2) RAID0 configurations, one using two (2) WD Raptors, and the other using two (2) WD Caviar SE 250GB drives (IDE). I was surprised to see this since I also assumed that RAID was only supported over SATA. But I double checked, and sure enough, this is clearly what the author is implying. To quote the article (pg. 30):

"The solution, of course, was to throw two RAID0 arrays on our ABIT motherboard -- the aforementioned Raptor drives complemented by the two ...

 

[TomG]

I can see two raid arrays on the IC7 since many configurations have both the ICH5-R SATA controller and the Silicon Image SATA controller which is raid capable as well. again, I have not played with the MAX3 but I have not seen anything that says it has PATA raid... the SI controller is NOT PATA, it is SATA.

 

[John (11)]

TomG, could you please have a look at my two previous posts today, I would appreciate it if you could help me, thanks.

"TomG" wrote:

I can see two raid arrays on the IC7 since many configurations have both

the

ICH5-R SATA controller and the Silicon Image SATA controller which is raid capable as well. again, I have not played with the MAX3 but I have not seen anything that says it has PATA raid... the SI controller is NOT PATA, it

is

SATA.

--

Thomas Geery
Network+ certified

ftp://geerynet.d2g.com
ftp://68.98.180.8 Abit Mirror <----- Cable modem IP
This IP is dynamic so it *could* change!...
over 118,000 FTP users served!
^^^^^^^
...

Thx.

I should add, the reason I even considered this possibility was due to a recent article in Maximum PC (Sept. 2003, Dream Machine, pg. 24) in which the author describes supporting two (2) RAID0 configurations, one using two (2) WD Raptors, and the other using two (2) WD Caviar SE 250GB drives (IDE). I was surprised to see this since I also assumed that RAID was only
supported over SATA. But I double checked, and sure enough, this is clearly what the author is implying. To quote the article (pg. 30):

"The solution, of course, was to throw two RAID0 arrays on our ABIT
motherboard -- the aforementioned Raptor drives complemented by the two 250GB Western Digital Caviar SE drives... The high-end Raptor drives run ...

the

Caviars hook into the Silicon Image RAID controller soldered onto our motherboard's PCB".

Again, noone was more suprised than me, but the article, if accurate, implies that the IDE controllers are somehow routed through the SATA
controller, and thus pick up RAID support. Seems hard to believe the author could have made such an egregious error in describing his RAID
configuration. But I haven't seen ANYONE ELSE, either online reviews, anyone in this forum, or a review of the manual indicate such support existed.

... RAID over
the PATA (IDE) connectors too? If so, how is this possible w/o the
traditional Highpoint chipsets of previous Abit boards? I'm guessing that
perhaps PATA and SATA are driven over the same ICH5R chipset?

TIA

Jim

 

[Jim (2)]

Thx for the detailed reply.

I too suspect the only means is the use of SATA-PATA adapters, but it's never mentioned in the article, nor visible in the pictures of the inside of the case. Pictures and descriptions just don't jive with my (and your) understanding of the IC7.

Btw, I like RAID for the RAID1 (mirroring) support, seeing as how the HD is the most vulnerable part of the PC. Just the easiest means to provide some protection. And I'm a big fan of Abit. But with the introduction of their 875P solutions, Abit has taken an "all or nothing" approach that's a bit annoying. I can understand a "legacy free" mobo like the MAX3 not supporting RAID over PATA, but why do AL:L of the 875P solutions from Abit eliminate this as well? I have some half-dozen PATA drives, and in order to stick w/ Abit and RAID, I either have to re-invest in SATA drives (w/ little performance gain), OR, invest in SATA adapters (placing the cost at $260+, seems silly), OR, regress to the IT7 (w/ 845PE, 4x AGP, 4 PCI, etc.) to pick up the Highpoint adapter. None of these seem like viable solutions. The presence of integrated RAID support over SATA by Intel seems to have given Abit an excuse to drop support RAID over legacy systems, even when the board is clearly a legacy board (i.e., non MAX).

Anyway, when I saw what appeared to be RAID support over PATA on the IC7, I got curious. I'm now considering the Epox 4PCA3+ for its Highpoint 374 controller, of course, then I lose Abit performance, SoftMenu, Firewire, etc., but the price is right (~ $138).

Jim

"Mark Taylor" wrote:

Hello Jim

The IC7 Max 3 does not support PATA RAID at all. I would assume they were using a PATA-SATA adaptors to run the PATA drives from the Silicone Image controller. BTW this controller supports RAID 0, 1 & 0+1 which means it can attach 4 drives. The Intel ICH5 supports 2 SATA drives and only RAID 0 or

1.

BTW I have two Highpoint PATA-SATA dongles for sale as I went and bought

two

Seagate 120 GB SATA drives for RAID 0 and have a 200 GB PATA drive which I backup to every night with Drive Image V7 in case they crash. Having used RAID for some time I am very nervous with RAID 0 as one hiccup and you loose the lost. I much prefer RAID 0+1 with 4 drives as it gives both performance with the RAID 0 striping and redundancy with the RAID 1 mirroring. I use this on my FTP server with a Promise Fasttrak TX2 and 4 x WD 80GB 7200 8MB drives which gives me 160 GB of storage and redundancy. Performance wise I find the SATA RAID only slightly faster and I was a little disappointed that the speed increase was not quantum compared to the above. I currently use

a

Gigabyte 8KNXP Rev 2.0 board but had a lot of problems previously and I am still looking very hard at this Abit board and from what I have read and heard it certainly appears to be a very good board. However be careful with memory as I purchased Corsair XMS 3200C2 1GB (2x512MB) as it was supposedly the premium type at the time and I have had many problems with 875 boards working effectively with this RAM.

Regards
Mark

"Jim" wrote:

Thx.

I should add, the reason I even considered this possibility was due to a
recent article in Maximum PC (Sept. 2003, Dream Machine, pg. 24) in which the author describes supporting two (2) RAID0 configurations, one using two
(2) WD Raptors, and the other using two (2) WD Caviar SE 250GB drives (IDE).
I was surprised to see this since I also assumed that RAID was only
supported over SATA. But I double checked, and sure enough, this is clearly
what the author is implying. To quote the article (pg. 30):

"The solution, of course, was to throw two RAID0 arrays on our ABIT
motherboard -- the aforementioned Raptor drives complemented by the two
250GB Western Digital Caviar SE drives... The high-end Raptor drives run ...

the

Caviars hook into the Silicon Image RAID controller soldered onto our
motherboard's PCB".

Again, noone was more suprised than me, but the article, if accurate,
implies that the IDE controllers are somehow routed through the SATA
controller, and thus pick up RAID support. Seems hard to believe the author
could have made such an egregious error in describing his RAID
configuration. But I haven't seen ANYONE ELSE, either online reviews,
anyone in this forum, or a review of the manual indicate such support
existed.

... RAID over
the PATA (IDE) connectors too? If so, how is this possible w/o the
traditional Highpoint chipsets of previous Abit boards? I'm guessing that
perhaps PATA and SATA are driven over the same ICH5R chipset?

TIA

Jim

 

[TomG]

I saw the one about the serillel-2 adapter question, was there another?

 

[TomG]

saw your second post as well...